Small Arms

Basic Principles

All small arms of the 20th Century fired ammunition
consisting of a solid bullet crimped into the front of a
thin-walled brass or steel cartridge. The cartridge also contained
gunpowder and a
primer containing a tiny charge of a highly sensitive explosive, such as lead styphnate or a mixture of
potassium perchlorate and powdered aluminum. The bullet itself
was usually made of lead, often with a copper or steel jacket.

There was considerable variation in small arms
ammunition, but the diagram above left shows a representative high
power military round. Although other arrangements were possible,
almost all military rounds placed the primer at the center of the
rear of the cartridge, as shown. The use of a cartridge with a
larger diameter than the bullet, except where it necked down to
hold the bullet, is characteristic of high power rounds, while low
power rounds (such as pistol or submachine gun rounds) often used
a cartridge only slightly greater in diameter than the bullet. The
rim at the base of the cartridge provided something for the
extraction mechanism to latch onto to pull the spent cartridge out
of the chamber after the round was fired. Many cartridges using a
recessed extracting groove in place of a rim. The photograph above
right shows a selection of ammunition rounds of various types.

The diagram above left shows the detailed mechanism of
the Springfield rifle, which was a typical bolt-action rifle used
by American forces
early in the war. The diagram to the right is a simplified diagram
showing the basic elements of a firearm. When the weapon was
loaded, a round of ammunition was locked into a chamber at the
rear of a hollow metal tube, or barrel, by a metal bolt. Except in
certain automatic weapons, the bolt itself was locked to the rear
of the barrel to ensure a tight seal. When the weapon's trigger
was pulled, a firing pin struck the primer, crushing it. This
detonated the sensitive primer charge, which in turn ignited the
gunpowder inside the cartridge. In this confined space, the
gunpowder burned extremely rapidly, generating hot gas at very
high pressure (as much as 50,000 ppsi or 340 MPa for a 0.50
machine gun round). The pressure of the gas pushed the
bullet forward and out of the barrel at a velocity of a few
hundred to a few thousand feet per second (a hundred to a thousand
meters per second), depending on the size of the propellant
charge, the length of the barrel, and the weight of the bullet.
All other things being equal, the muzzle velocity was greater for
a lighter bullet, a longer barrel, or a larger propellant charge.
However, lighter bullets tended to slow down more quickly after
leaving the barrel due to air resistance.

The brass cartridge was pressed tightly against the bolt
and the walls of the chamber by the propellant gas, forming a
gas-tight seal and ensuring that the hot propellant gas had
nowhere to go but out the barrel behind the bullet. The bullet was
also designed to form a gas-tight seal with the walls of the
barrel. The interior of the barrel was rifled; that is, it had shallow spiral grooves
cut into it. The rifling in the barrel imparted a spin to the
bullet, which greatly increased its accuracy. Once the bullet was
fired, the empty cartridge was extracted from the chamber by an
extractor that hooked onto the rim or extracting groove at the
rear of the cartridge. A new round could now be loaded.

All small arms were subject to fouling by a combination
of gunpowder residues and lead from the bullets. Fouling could be
minimized by firing at a lower muzzle velocity, by firing bullets
with copper or steel jackets, or by plating the inside of the
barrel with chromium (an
expensive process reserved for the most sophisticated small arms.)
Nevertheless, all small arms required periodic cleaning to remove
fouling and other grime, and the skill of rapidly breaking down
and reassembling their small arms was part of the basic training of new recruits.

International
law prohibited the use of bullets designed to expand or
explode on impact with a human target. (This restriction did not
apply to antiaircraft or
antitank ammunition.) The
prohibition of expanding or exploding bullets reflected the belief
that seeking to kill
rather than merely disable the enemy was cruelty beyond the
necessity of war. In practical terms, while a wounded soldier
might live to fight another day, he also required the assistance
of his comrades, so a wounded soldier reduced the manpower
immediately available to the enemy more than a dead soldier did.
As a result, the restriction on exploding and expanding bullets
was mostly honored during the Pacific War.

Magazines. Many
small arms were equipped with a magazine that could hold a number
of rounds of ammunition. The loading mechanism ejected any spent
cartridge from the chamber, fed a fresh round from the magazine
into the chamber, and cocked the firing pin. Older bolt-action
rifles had an integral magazine, built into the rifle, while more
modern rifles used a detachable magazine that could be quickly
removed and replaced with a full magazine.

Either kind of magazine had to be reloaded with fresh
rounds once it was emptied. In some cases the ammunition was
supplied in a clip that was inserted as a unit into the magazine
(an en bloc clip), and which could be removed when empty
and replaced with a fresh clip. This largely eliminated the need
for a removable magazine.

Other magazines, particularly on older weapons, could be
loaded with individual bullets, or they could be loaded from a
charger (also known as a stripper clip.) The charger was placed on
the top of the magazine and the rounds in the clip were pressed
down with a thumb to "strip" them into the magazine. The empty
charger was then usually discarded.

Revolvers were handguns that used a revolving cylinder
to hold ammunition. They were reloaded by either breaking open the
action or by swinging the cylinder to one side.

Ammunition for light machine guns was usually stored in
a large magazine or fed from a hopper. Medium and heavy machine
guns capable of very high volumes of fire used belted ammunition,
in which hundreds of rounds were clipped into a long belt. Belted
ammunition could be further subdivided into disintegrating and
non-disintegrating belted ammunition. Older machine guns used
non-disintegrating belts, in which rounds were inserted into
individual pockets or clips in a continuous cloth or metal belt.
Each round was extracted in turn from its pocket by the machine
gun, leaving an empty belt that could be reloaded by hand.
Disintegrating belts consisted of rounds connected to each other
by metal links, and as each round was extracted from its links,
the links fell apart and were ejected from the machine gun.
Disintegrating belts were widely used for aircraft machine guns,
where the trouble of dealing with empty belts was not worth the
ease and economy of reloading the belt. In land or sea warfare,
the links could be gathered up and reused, though it required
special tools to reassemble links and fresh rounds into a new
belt.

A few machine guns used strip ammunition, which
functioned like short, rigid ammunition belts. In practice, strip
ammunition combined the worst features of belted and magazine
ammunition.

Actions. Bolt-action
weapons
were
loaded manually. The soldier worked a handle on the bolt that
pulled the bolt back from the chamber and extracted any spent
round, then pushed the bolt forward, inserting a fresh round into
the chamber and cocking the firing pin. This had to be done after
each round was fired. By contrast, automatic weapons used some of
the energy of a fired round to automatically load and fire the
next round. The mechanism for tapping this energy (the action)
operated in one of three ways.

Recoil actions took advantage of the recoil of the
entire bolt and barrel assembly to work the loader. This was a
simple and robust approach, but because the heavy barrel recoiled
at relatively low velocity, pure recoil actions were not capable
of a high rate of fire. Recoil actions were further subdivided
into into short recoil and long recoil actions. In long recoil
actions, the barrel and bolt recoiled together, then the bolt was
unlocked and a recoil spring forced the barrel back forward while
extracting the spent round. After the barrel had moved forward,
the bolt was released and also moved forward, chambering a new
round and locking back onto the barrel. In short recoil actions,
the barrel and bolt recoiled together for only a short distance
before the bolt was unlocked and the barrel was brought to a halt.
The bolt continued back to eject the spend round, then a recoil
spring pushed the bolt forward, chambering the next round and
locking the bolt back onto the barrel. The bolt and barrel then
moved forward the remaining short distance into firing position.
Recoil actions could also be subdivided into open bolt or closed
bolt actions. In closed bolt actions, the firing cycle began with
the round already fully chambered and ready to fire. In open bolt
actions, the firing cycle began with the bolt fully recoiled. When
the trigger was pulled, the bolt was released to move forward,
load the first round, and fire it. Open bolt actions were
mechanically simpler and had less tendency to overheat than closed
bolt actions, since the chamber was open to the air between
bursts, but the open bolt imposed a noticeable delay between
pulling the trigger and firing the first round and had a greater
tendency to be inaccurate with the first few rounds.

Sequence of images showing short recoil action (click to
enlarge)

Blowback actions relied on the recoil of the bolt alone.
The faster motion of the relatively light bolt improved the rate
of fire, but the bolt could not be locked to the rear of the
barrel at the moment of firing, because this would neutralize the
recoil. The resulting loose seal meant that blowback actions were
unsafe to use with high chamber pressures. Simple blowback actions
relied on the inertia of a relatively heavy bolt, which took
enough time to recoil that the bullet was already out of the
barrel and the chamber pressure reduced to safe levels before the
chamber was opened. Advanced primer ignition (API) blowback
actions were open bolt actions that fired the round while the bolt
was still moving forward into the chamber. Thus the recoil had to
overcome not only the inertia of the bolt, but also its forward
momentum, which permitted the use of a lighter bolt and more
powerful ammunition. This also improved the rate of fire and
reduced the recoil felt by the operator. However, API blowback
actions had to be finely tuned to a specific cartridge.

Gas actions tapped some of the gas out of the barrel to
push on a piston that worked the loader. This mechanism was
complicated, but allowed a high rate of accurate fire.

There were many variations on the three basic actions,
and some weapons, such as the German
MG42, used a combination of recoil and gas mechanisms (boosted
recoil) to achieve a very high rate of fire.

Whichever action was used, an automatic weapon kept
firing as long as the trigger was kept pulled and there was
ammunition remaining. However, rapid fire generated a great deal
of heat while expending large amounts of ammunition, so automatic
weapons were usually fired in short bursts to saturate a small
target area. They were also equipped with a cooling system to
dissipate heat more rapidly. Air-cooled weapons had cooling fins
or jackets that increased the area in contact with the air.
Liquid-cooled systems circulated water or some other coolant from
a reservoir to a jacket around the barrel. The best liquid-cooled
systems could keep the barrel cool indefinitely, so that the
weapon could fire almost nonstop for hours. Air-cooled systems
were not as efficient, and the weapon had to cease firing at
intervals to allow the cooling system to catch up with the heat
generated.

Semiautomatic weapons resembled automatic weapons in
that part of the energy of a fired round was used to automatically
load the next round. However, this round was not automatically
fired. A separate pull on the trigger was required to fire each
round, as with a bolt-action weapon, but there was no need to work
the bolt between shots. This simplified the firing cycle and meant
that less training was required for a rifleman to achieve a high
rate of aimed fire.

Other Components. The part of a weapon that
housed the working parts (typically the barrel breech, bolt,
magazine port, firing pin, and trigger mechanism) was known as the
receiver. This was the heart of the weapon and was often imprinted
with a unique serial number. (Such imprinting is required by law
in most 21st century nations.)

Rifles and submachine guns typically had a stock, which
was a wooden or metal frame structure to the rear of the receiver
that rested against the infantryman's shoulder when he fired the
weapon. This both steadied the weapon and allowed the shoulder to
absorb the recoil. The stock of a rifle was also sometimes spoken
of as the butt of the rifle.

Small arms had sights used to aim the weapon, typically
taking the form of either forward and rear sights that were lined
up with each other and the target or a small telescope equipped
with cross hairs. The latter was rarely used except on sniper rifles. Many small arms
had adjustments to their sights that not only allowed the sights
to be calibrated, but also allowed the sights to be adjusted for
the curved trajectory of a bullet fired at long range.

Types of Small Arms

A variety of small arms were employed within the
infantry platoon.

Pistols were used by every army engaged in the Pacific
War, typically as side arms for officers and NCOs and for
crews of heavy weapons, tanks,
and aircraft.
They were short-range defensive weapons. Pistols typically fired a
relatively heavy bullet at low muzzle velocity and with limited
accuracy. All military pistols were either revolvers or
semiautomatics with a magazine capacity of six to eight rounds.

Rifles were the traditional mainstay of the infantry squad. Most were capable of
accurate fire at ranges of hundreds of yards in the hands of a
trained marksman. Most armies began the war equipped with
bolt-action rifles, but gas-action semiautomatic rifles were
introduced by the United
States early in the Pacific War. A rifle magazine typically
held five to ten rounds.

Carbines were short, lightweight rifles introduced to
give more defensive firepower to heavy weapon crews. They were
also used by paratroopers,
for whom their lighter weight was important.

Antitank rifles were large-caliber, high-velocity rifles
that fired a very heavy armor
piercing round. They could not penetrate armor thicker than about
30mm (1.2 inches), but could be devastating against light tanks
and armored cars. They were replaced with more effective shaped-charge weapons as
the war progressed.

Machine guns were fully automatic weapons supplied with
large quantities of ammunition. Most machine guns were crew-served
weapons, meaning that more than one man was required to operate
the machine gun at full firepower. Typically one man was the
gunner, responsible for aiming and firing, and one or two other
men were loaders, responsible for keeping the machine gun supplied
with ammunition. Since machine guns were heavy, it was also useful
to have more than one soldier to carry parts of the gun or its
ammunition.

Machine guns were further categorized as light, medium,
or heavy machine guns. Heavy machine guns were distinguished by
their use of a heavy round, at least 0.50 caliber (12.7mm), but
the distinction between light and medium machine guns was often
made more on the basis of intended use than on any weapons
characteristics: Light machine guns were meant to be issued to
individual infantry squads, while medium machine guns were
controlled at the platoon level or above.

It became increasingly clear during the Second World War
that machine guns were the main source of firepower for the line
infantry. Allied
operational researchers concluded that a machine gun had the
firepower of nine riflemen. The Germans realized this well before
hostilities commenced, and their riflemen were taught that keeping
the squad machine gun firing was their primary task. The British were very slow
to accept the diminished role of riflemen, while the United States tried to
employ the Browning automatic rifle in the role of a squad light
machine gun, with only limited success. The Japanese never really accepted
firepower as the arbiter of combat success, but their formal
platoon organization was based on the German model and they made
particularly effective use of machine guns in defensive
situations.

Another trend in small arms during the Second World War
was the increased use of submachine guns for close-quarter
fighting. A submachine gun is essentially a fully automatic pistol
with a large magazine, and most submachine guns used pistol
ammunition. All participants in the Pacific War were slow to adopt
them, with the exception of the U.S. Marines, who quickly
embraced the Thompson submachine gun. The British eventually made
extensive use of the Sten gun. The Japanese produced submachine
guns only in very limited quantities, which saw combat primarily
with their paratroops.

Japanese Small Arms

The Japanese deployed some fine small arms, but many
others were clumsy and mediocre, and the Japanese did a poor job
of standardizing on ammunition. This fragmented the already
inadequate Japanese munitions industry.

Japanese pistols were uniformly poor, possibly because
of the strong tradition of the sword as an
officer's proper sidearm. The most common pistol was the Nambu, an
8mm semiautomatic which superficially resembled the German Luger,
but which was marred by a badly-placed safety and a magazine that
was much too difficult to remove when empty. The striker spring
was too light and quickly wore out, causing misfires, so the
standard holster came with a pocket for replacement springs. The
Nambu was expensive to build, so the Japanese began issuing the
Type 94, another 8mm semiautomatic, which had a very low muzzle
velocity, was prone to accidental firing, and was mechanically
very unreliable. It is widely regarded as the worst military
pistol ever issued, and one authority has stated that "the Type 94
is a pistol that should not be carried or fired; it is a
collector's piece only" (Bishop and Drury 1987).

The Japanese rifle was almost always the Arisaka, a bolt
action rifle based loosely on the German Mauser that was little
changed from the First World War. The original Type 38 fired a
rather small 6.5mm round, which was upgraded to 7.7mm in the Type
99, based on combat experience in Manchuria. However, both
rifles remained in service, complicating the supply situation. Most of the
Type 99 went to Manchuria. The integral magazine could hold five
rounds. Because of the limitations of Japanese metallurgy, the
barrel could not take a very high chamber pressure, but the
Japanese compensated by making the barrel unusually long. The
rifle came with an enormous bayonet that looked almost comical
when carried by the average Japanese infantryman, who was shorter
than his Western counterpart. However, the Arisaka proved
satisfactory for jungle
fighting, where its weak report and lack of flash and smoke aided
concealment. On the other hand, its bullet made a distinctive
cracking sound that was easily distinguished from Allied rifles during
firefights, and some Japanese veterans envied the higher effective
rate of fire of Allied rifles.

Both the Type 38 and the Type 99 came in carbine
versions, and these were issued almost interchangeably with the
long rifles. The Type 97 sniper
rifle was essentially a Type 38 with a telescopic sight, a
modified bolt to clear the sight, and a wire monopod. There was
also a sniper version of the Type 99.

As the blockade on the Japanese home island tightened,
the quality of arms manufacture deteriorated markedly. The basic
Arisaka design was simplified as much as possible and inferior
materials and workmanship were evident in rifles produced after
1943. There was even some production of single-shot rifles using
8mm pistol ammunition and of black-powder rifles.

The Japanese produced a limited number of Type 100
submachine guns, mostly for paratroopers. This weapon came with a
bayonet and was rather rifle-like in appearance, suggesting that
the Japanese had the same confusion about the proper role of
submachine guns as was evident with other nations. It may also
have been largely symbolic in an army that retained an
anachronistic fondness for cold steel. The Type 100 used the
feeble 8mm pistol round and was mechanically unreliable, but the
barrel was chrome-plated, which gave it a long life and
considerable resistance to dirt. Few reached the front line,
except possibly in parachute units. The parachute version was
equipped with a folding stock and saw service in the attack on Palembang.

The Japanese were fond of machine guns and based most of
theirs on the French
Hotchkiss. The Type 92 medium machine gun, known to the Allies as
the "Woodpecker" because of its relatively slow rate of fire, was
nonetheless an effective support weapon and popular with the
troops. However, the extraction mechanism was violent enough that
an oil reservoir had to be added to oil the cartridges. This acted
as a powerful dirt magnet and made for very rapid chamber wear.
Other drawbacks of the Type 92 were its considerable weight (122
lbs or 55.5 kg) and its use of 7.7mm 30-round strip ammunition
instead of belts. The weight was overcome by providing sockets for
poles in the front two legs of the tripod mount and a pair of
handlebars for the back leg (visible in the photograph above),
which allowed three men to pick up and move the weapon without
disassembling it first. The weapon was air cooled via large
cooling fins on the barrel.

The Type 11 light machine gun was intended from the
start as a squad machine gun, and it was fed from 6.5mm rifle
clips fed into a hopper. However, the feed mechanism proved too
weak for regular rifle cartridges, so a special low-power round
had to be developed, eliminating the advantage of using rifle
clips and further complicating supply. Like the Type 92, the Type
11 used oiled cartridges that attracted grit and had large cooling
fins that made it an ugly, clumsy-looking weapon. The Type 11 was
replaced by the similar Type 96 beginning in 1922. The new design
still required low-power cartridges, and it eliminated the oil
reservoir in favor of oiling the cartridges when they were loaded
into the magazine. If anything, this was worse than the oil
reservoir. The Type 96 also had a small telescopic sight and,
incredibly for a machine gun, a bayonet socket.

Type 11 Light Machine Gun

Ammunition

6.5mm Meiji reduced load

Weight

22.5 lbs
10.19 kg

Barrel

19"
482mm

Ammunition
feed

Hopper with capacity of 6 5-round
clips

Rate of fire

500 rpm

Muzzle
velocity

2300 fps
700 m/s

Type 96 Light Machine Gun

Ammunition

6.5mm Meiji reduced load

Weight

20 lbs
9.07 kg

Ammunition
feed

30 round detachable box magazine

Rate of fire

550 rpm

Muzzle
velocity

2410 fps
735 m/s

In the Type 99 the Japanese finally had a reliable and
effective machine gun. It used the newer 7.7mm rifle caliber and
did away with oiled cartridges. However, it required more
extensive machining and could not be produced as rapidly as the
situation demanded, and it did not reach the front lines until
1943.

Type 99 Light Machine Gun

Ammunition

7.7mm Shiki 99

Weight

23 lbs
10.43 kg

Barrel

21.5"
545mm

Ammunition
feed

30-round detachable box magazine

Rate of fire

500 rpm

Muzzle
velocity

2350 fps
715 m/s

Effective range

1500 yards (1370 m)

In spite of their limitations, the Japanese made
excellent use of their light machine guns as squad weapons,
employing them well forward, in ambush,
and even as a sniper weapon.
Each infantry squad had a light machine gun, and each battalion had a machine gun company of two platoons with
four medium machine guns each.

The Japanese Type 97 antitank rifle was a large, very
heavy weapon that fired its 20mm rounds only in fully automatic
mode. It could be manhandled to a new firing location, using a
special carrying arrangement not unlike that of the Type 92
machine gun, though this took four men. The weapon was quite
complicated, probably to reduce the violent recoil to a tolerable
level. It was expensive to manufacture, and the authorized
allotment was just two per battalion. There are indications that
even this sparse allotment could not be met, though some were used
(to little effect) at Okinawa
and a few might have been used to shoot at armored landing craft in the
islands of the Pacific.

British Small Arms

British small arms, which were also used by Australians and New Zealanders, were
distinguished by extreme conservatism, which meant that most were
simple and reliable but otherwise undistinguished. With the
exception of the older revolvers still in service, all British
small arms used either the 9mm Parabellum or the 0.303 SAA rimmed
cartridge , which simplified production and logistics. The 0.303
was not ideal for machine guns but there were factories throughout
the Empire set up for its manufacture.

The most common pistol was the Enfield revolver, which
fired a 0.38 round and required considerable training for
effective use. One flaw was that it required a very strong trigger
pull, which tended to spoil the aim. It was not popular. It was
supplemented by the much better American Smith and Wesson 0.38
revolver. An even better pistol was the Browning 9mm
semiautomatic, which had a large magazine (13 rounds) and was
immensely popular with the commando
and airborne units lucky
enough to receive it. The Browning was originally manufactured in
Belgium, but plans were brought to Britain in 1939 and production
began in Canada in 1943,
initially for the Chinese but
then for the British.

Britain never put a semiautomatic rifle into service,
sticking with the Lee-Enfield bolt action rifle to the end of the
war. This was an excellent rifle, capable of very rapid and
accurate fire, but only if the soldier was exquisitely
well-trained in its use. The magazine held ten rounds and was
detachable, but was usually loaded from clipper strips while in
the field. The rifle used a 0.303 round that was unnecessarily
powerful and required very careful loading to avoid jams. In spite
of its drawbacks, the Enfield was beloved by the troops, and few
ever picked up a Garand in preference their Enfield.

Lee-Enfield Rifle Number 4

Ammunition

0.303 SAA

Weight

9.06 lbs
4.17 kg

Barrel

25.19"
640mm

Magazine

10-round detachable box

Muzzle
velocity

2400 fps
731 m/s

The Lee-Enfield had a relatively short barrel, which was
intended to allow it to bridge the gap between rifle and carbine.
However, the British later produced a true carbine version, the
Number 5 Mark I, for use in jungle
fighting. Though very light, it used the same 0.303 cartridge that
was already unnecessarily powerful for a long rifle, which gave it
a nasty recoil and poor accuracy. It was deeply unpopular and was
dropped from service after just a year and a half.

Britain was slow to accept the submachine gun concept,
considering this a "gangster weapon" unsuitable for the military.
Military authorities clung to the view that infantry were to
engage the enemy at 600 yards with aimed rifle fire, and turn to
the bayonet at close range. Fraser (2007) captured the British
infantryman's attitude:

I had grown to love my old snub-nosed Lee Enfield, and
resented having to part with it, but it was usual for a section
2i/c [second in command] to carry a Thompson if one were
available, so I accepted the thing and detested it. It was ugly,
ungainly, I hadn't been trained in its use or taught to regard
it as a wife, and it couldn't have come within ten feet of a
falling plate at two hundred yards. Its whole purpose was
automatic, and my view was that if single aimed shots had been
good enough for the Duke of Wellington, they were good enough
for me. For some reason I felt like a bully, just carrying it,
and it rusted like an old bed-frame. I threw it in a Sittang creek, eventually,
but in the meantime I had to go about like Lance-corporal
Capone.

But somehow the British came up with the Sten gun,
arguably the most successful submachine gun of the war. It was
flimsy and prone to jamming, but it also was very easy to
manufacture, requiring only the simplest machine tools, and it was
easy to break down. Later versions were more robust and were used
in large numbers by the airborne forces. The gun was copied by partisan and resistance groups
in Europe and even by the Germans, who called theirs the MP3008.
It continued to be manufactured by irregular forces in the postwar
world.

British machine guns were based on sensible and
effective designs. The Bren light machine gun, which was based on
the Czech Brno ZB26, was reliable, simple, and accurate and was
probably the best light machine gun of the war. Its only weakness
was a slight tendency to jam, due to the use of rimmed ammunition
requiring a curved magazine, but jams were quickly and easily
cleared. It was also an expensive gun to manufacture, and there
was little room for simplification other than discarding the
tripod mounting. It is still in use today. The Vickers-Berthier
light machine gun had a high rate of fire, as high as 1200 rpm in
the later versions, and was manufactured in Ishapore for use by the Indian Army. It closely resembled
the Bren and tended to be supplemented by it in the Indian Army as
the war progressed. The Vickers medium machine gun was a very old
design, based on the Maxim, that was viewed as all but infallible
by the British Army. It was water-cooled, which made it heavy and
clumsy, so that it required considerable manpower; but it could
fire for hours at targets up to 4000 yards away. During the Somme
offensive in the First World War, one Vickers fired an average of
10,000 rounds an hour for twelve hours without failure and while
remaining serviceable afterwards.

The Boys antitank rifle was manufactured in larger
numbers than any other antitank rifle in the world. It was adopted
in 1937, when its steel-cored 15mm bullet (fired at 3250 feet per
second or 1000 meters per second) could penetrate any tank in the
world, but like every other antitank rifle it quickly became
obsolete. Though equipped with a very thick rubber butt, it kicked
like a mule when fired. It was quite effective against Italian tanks in North Africa,
less so against the heavier German tanks. It was used to effect
against Japanese tanks in Malaya,
but by the time the British were engaging Japanese armor
formations again, it had been replaced with the PIAT shaped-charge
weapon.

Boys Mark 1 Antitank Rifle

Ammunition

0.55 Boys

Weight

36 lbs
16.32 kg

Barrel

36"
915 mm

Magazine

5-round detachable box

Muzzle
velocity

3250 fps
900 m/s

Penetration

21mm at 300m at normal impact

American Small Arms

American small arms were robust, reliable, based on
standardized ammunition types, and produced in huge numbers. All
American small arms except the 0.50 Browning heavy machine gun
used either the 0.45 (11mm) pistol round or the 0.30 (7.6mm) rifle
round, although a slightly less powerful version of the 0.30 was
used for the M1 carbine. The American Army emphasized firepower
and included a heavy weapons platoon in its companyTO&E.

The Colt M1911A1 semiautomatic pistol was ubiquitous in
the American forces. This was an excellent design by American
inventor John Browning, whose large 0.45 round made it the most
powerful pistol used in the war. It was strong and safe, it was
remarkably accurate for a pistol, and it is still manufactured
today. It was probably the finest pistol produced during the war.
Its only drawback was that its round was arguably too powerful, requiring a
fair amount of practice to shoot the pistol accurately. There were
not enough to go around; the Navy was compelled to use the Smith
and Wesson revolver, which was not itself a bad weapon.

The United States was the first nation to arm its troops
with a semiautomatic rifle, the M1 Garand. This excellent weapon
had a distinctive double-barrel appearance due to the presence of
the gas recoil mechanism under the actual barrel. It was robust
and hard-hitting, and it had remarkably little tendency to kick up
when fired. It also used the same ammunition as the 1913
Springfield, of which vast quantities were left over from the
First World War. The magazine had the unique and somewhat peculiar
feature that it automatically ejected the clip when emptied,
leaving the action open for loading a fresh clip into the
magazine. Though this theoretically increased the maximum rate of
sustained fire, the distinctive sound made by the ejected clip
when landing on hard ground could be a tactical disadvantage, and
it was not possible to top off the clip without removing it from
the magazine first. The most important weakness of the Garand in
jungle fighting was that the gunpowder used in its cartridges
produced a bright flash and a large puff of smoke, spoiling
concealment.

A carbine version of the Garand, the M1 Carbine, was
also introduced. It was quite popular because of its light recoil
and pleasant handling. It used a short-stroke gas piston in place
of the long-stroke piston in the Garand rifle, so it lacked the
double-barreled appearance. The carbine fired a pistol cartridge
and so was somewhat lacking in accuracy and stopping power.
Experimental versions with a capability for full automatic fire
and a 30-round magazine never saw operational use, but it became
common practice to attach a canvas pouch to the stock with a
couple of extra magazines, in anticipation of rapid fire.

There were not enough Garands to go around at first, and
many of the early actions of the Pacific War were fought with the
1903 Springfield bolt action rifle. The Springfield was similar to
the Enfield but fired a slightly smaller 0.30 round and had an
integral magazine holding five rounds. Its bolt was also slightly
more difficult to work, giving it a slightly slower rate of fire.
One peculiarity was that it had a magazine cutoff so that it could
act as a single-loader rifle. This rifle continued to be
manufactured until 1944, though by then it was primarily used in
rear areas or by snipers. Like the British Enfield, it could be
very accurate in well-trained hands, and some Marines were reluctant to
exchange theirs for Garands.

Springfield M1903

Ammunition

0.30 M1906

Weight

8.69 lbs
3.94 kg

Barrel

24"
610mm

Magazine

5-round integral box

Muzzle
velocity

2800 fps
853 m/s

M1 Garand Rifle

Ammunition

0.30 M1906

Weight

9.5 lbs
4.37 kg

Barrel

24"
610mm

Magazine

8-round integral box

Muzzle
velocity

2800 fps
853 m/s

Carbine M1

Ammunition

0.30 M1 Carbine

Weight

5.44 lbs
2.48 kg

Barrel

18"
457mm

Magazine

15-round detachable box

Muzzle
velocity

1950 fps
593 m/s

A small number of Marine parachute units made use of the M1914
Johnson rifle, which was a recoil-driven semiautomatic rifle with
a 10-round magazine. However, the desire to standardize weaponry,
combined with the lesser degree of development of the weapon,
ensured that it never saw widespread use.

The most famous American submachine gun was the
Thompson. This controversial weapon fired 0.45 pistol rounds at
low muzzle velocity, giving it a very short range but great
stopping power. It was heavy and very expensive to manufacture,
required constant maintenance, and had a tendency to overheat.
When fired in combat, it sounded similar to the Japanese Type 92
machine gun, which meant that a soldier firing the Thompson might
draw fire from his own
side. Australian troops were fond of the Thompson, as were those
American troops who fought alongside the Australians in New Guinea, but the Thompson
was not popular with troops fighting in the Solomons.

The U.S. Army replaced the Thompson with the M3 "Grease
Gun", a simple and easily manufactured weapon that deserved a
better reputation than it got. The M3 had a slow enough rate of
fire that it could easily be held on target and needed no
single-shot arrangement. It cost about half of what a Thompson
cost, and it was all but immune to dirt. It could also be rapidly
converted to fire German 9mm ammunition. But it looked cheap and
was not well liked.

The Marines experimented with the Reising, which became
the principle individual small arm of 1
Marine Parachute Battalion during the Guadalcanal campaign. A
closed bolt design, this submachine gun proved overly complicated
and mechanically unreliable (the Marine paratroopers soon dubbed
it the "Rusting Gun"), and the Americans ended up trying to dump
most of the production run on their allies.

M1 Thompson Submachine Gun

Ammunition

0.45 M1911

Weight

10.56 lbs
4.82 kg

Barrel

10.5"
266mm

Magazine

20- or 30-round detachable box

Rate of fire

700 rpm

Muzzle
velocity

910 fps
277 m/s

M3A1 Submachine Gun

Ammunition

0.45 M1911

Weight

8.19 lbs
3.71 kg

Barrel

8"
203mm

Magazine

30-round detachable box

Rate of fire

400 rpm

Muzzle
velocity

910 fps
277 m/s

Shotguns, which fire a pattern of small pellets rather
than a single large bullet, were banned by the Geneva Convention
and were therefore not standard issue. However, some Americans
regarded the Geneva shotgun ban as an outrageous anachronism in a
day of high-velocity bullets and high explosives, and a few
shotguns found their way to the front line. Shotguns were lethal
at short range, but lost their punch so rapidly that they were
excellent for avoiding friendly
fire casualties in half-blind situations.

The American medium machine gun was the 0.30 Browning
M1919, which came in both water-cooled and air-cooled versions.
The water-cooled Browning, like the British Vickers, could fire
indefinitely, but by the end of the war, almost all Brownings
still in service were air-cooled. The heavy machine gun was the 0.50 Browning M2,
which was thought to have enough armor-penetrating capability that
the American Army never fielded an antitank rifle. The 0.50, which
is still in use today, has superb ballistics but is very heavy and
lacked the rate of fire required for the antiaircraft role. Both
Brownings were considered resounding successes in land combat.

The great weakness in American small arms was the lack
of a decent light machine gun. The U.S. Army chose instead to
equip its squads with the Browning M1918A2 automatic rifle, which
proved too light to be a good light machine gun and too heavy to
be a good automatic rifle. Though designed to be fired from the
hip, its recoil was violent enough that it was almost impossible
to keep this weapon on target, and later versions came with a
bipod for firing from the prone position. Its small magazine (20
rounds) was inadequate for the role this weapon was asked to fill.
The action was too light, making the weapon subject to rapid wear.
Nevertheless, the BAR was popular with the troops, perhaps out of
national chauvinism or because they didn't know better.

Browning Automatic Rifle

Ammunition

0.30 M1906

Weight

16 lbs
7.28 kg

Barrel

24"
610mm

Magazine

20-round detachable box

Rate of fire

500 rpm

Muzzle
velocity

2650 fps
807 m/s

It need not have been so. The Johnson light machine gun,
developed in the mid-1930s from the M1914 Johnson rifle, was a
serviceable weapon with potential for further refinement, but only
a small number were produced for the Marines and Rangers after an order for
the Netherlands
East Indies was canceled when that area was overrun by the
Japanese. This weapon was so arranged that air could flow through
the barrel to cool it after every burst. Some sources claim it was
easily topped off with Springfield rifle clips, but this is
dubious given the horizontal placement of the magazine. Its rate
of fire was highly adjustable. It was not mechanically robust, and
it is not clear if the weapon could be belt-fed, but these
problems might have been solved with further development if the
Army had not been so committed to the BAR.

An attempt later in the war to produce a light machine
gun from the medium 0.30 Browning failed to catch on, so the
Americans fought the entire war without an adequate squad light
machine gun. However, Marine corporal Tony Stein carried a light
machine gun on Iwo Jima
which had been improvised from a 0.30 Browning salvaged from a
wrecked Navy aircraft. He used the weapon to effect during the
battle, winning a posthumous Medal of Honor. Accounts differ on
whether this weapon, known as the "Stinger", was Stein's invention
(Leckie 1962) or was improvised by Sergeant Mel Grevich, who had
time and resources to provide just six "Stingers" to his battalion, which included
Stein (Morgan 2006.) Since it was improvised from an aircraft
machine gun meant to be cooled by the slip stream, it would almost
certainly have had serious problems with overheating in land
combat, and accounts agree that it was voracious in its appetite
for ammunition. The improvisation was never officially adopted nor
are there any indications it saw service outside of 5
Marine Division.

Australian Small Arms

For the most part, the Australians used the same weapons
as the British, but there were two interesting exceptions. The
Australians built their own version of the Sten, known as the
Austen (from "Australian Sten"). This was more reliable than the
original Sten, but its buttstock was built too long for comfort
for most soldiers.

The Australians had meanwhile come up with their own
submachine gun, the Owen, which was much more popular. The Owen
was a very odd weapon, with its 33-round magazine sticking
straight up above the action. As a result, the sights had to be
offset to the right. However, the magazine was quite reliable, in
part because gravity worked with rather than against the feed, and
the action itself was carefully sealed against dirt. The weapon
was difficult to manufacture and rather heavy, but was robust and
well liked by the troops. It remained in service until 1962.

Owen Machine Carbine

Ammunition

9mm Parabellum

Weight

9.28 lbs
4.21 kg

Barrel

9.84"
250mm

Magazine

33-round detachable magazine

Rate of fire

700 rpm

Muzzle
velocity

1380 fps
420 m/s

There were manufacturing facilities in Australia for an
earlier version of the Lee-Enfield rifle, the Number 1 Rifle,
which thus saw some use by Australians in the Southwest Pacific.
It was slightly lighter and had a slightly lower muzzle velocity,
was significantly more difficult to manufacture, but was otherwise
identical to the Lee-Enfield Number 4 Rifle.

Chinese Small Arms

China was almost competely
dependent on imported small arms for its army. Domestic arms
production was limited to a small number of weapons of older
German design produced under license, such as Mauser rifles and
Maxim machine guns. These also were the chief weapons found in
front line units in the early part of the war. American weapons
began to appear as the war progressed, though these were usually
whatever could be spared rather than the latest models. There were
never enough weapons to go around, and one estimate is that up to
a third of the men in most Chinese divisions carried no firearms
at all. These men were employed as human pack animals, since there
were not enough horses, let alone motor
vehicles, to meet transportation needs. Based on
contemporary photographs, many Chinese troops carried dadao swords for close
combat.

The Chinese did receive the first Canadian
production run of the Browning 9mm automatic pistol, and were
particularly fond of the rather bizarre wooden holster stock
optimistically developed for the weapon. This converted the pistol
into a kind of ersatz carbine.

Another weapon foisted on the Chinese was the Mauser Model 1932
machine pistol. This weapon was much too light for any but the
first round of a burst to come near the target, and it was so
poorly cooled that it was dangerously prone to "cooking off":
After a few bursts, the weapon spontaneously fired itself from
residual heat in the chamber.

Curiously, the Chinese manufactured a number of copycat Thompson
submachine guns, in spite of their complexity. If typical Chinese
Nationalist Army practice
was followed, these would have been issued only to trusted troops
far behind the front line, where the weapons were less likely to
be lost in battle.

Some 576 British Boys antitank rifles were supplied to the
Chinese in early 1943 for use in Burma.